Custom Made Shooter Game

Some of my friends we discussing how cool would it be if Zerg (starcraft), Xen (Half-Life) and Xenomorphs (aliens vs predators) were all in the shooter game when we had a brilliant idea, why not make a custom made shooter game featuring every alien race from every science fiction game? We could take all the insect alien races blend them into a big enemy, use all the cool weapons and features and have dozens of playable races. Like a fan made Mugen fighter style shooter. Right now we are just getting started and trying to lay out all the ground work. We have decided to build our own engine for this project so it won't be confused as just another mod for a different game. We haven't even decided a name for it yet, we are thinking of calling it either Eden or Genesis.

The reason I'm creating this thread is to get help collecting mods and resources for this little project of ours. Any race, weapon, map or any thing at all you would like to see in this game just leave a suggestion and we will take it into consideration. We are looking to incorporate a wide verity of different games and elements into this. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. ^.^

-The Background Story Thus Far-In the year 3124, across the multiverse dimensional rifts ripped open and an unknown biological alien force flooded into all the known galaxies. They quickly swept through and overwhelmed the unprepared defenders, devouring planets whole and leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. In a desperate attempt to try to seal the rifts, the various races sent their own fleets into the rifts to try to close them from the other side. Unable to navigate the turbulent rift space, the fleets were ravaged and many vessels were destroyed. The ships that managed to survive were thrown into an uninhabited universe with a swarms of bugs in pursuit. Knowing their numbers are to few and resources to scarce to hold off the invading bugs alone for long, they must band together and make a final stand for survival. This newly formed alliance will not only have to stop the invading forces, but also deal with betrayal within it's own ranks. (story needs work)

Survival: Endless stream of bad guys will attack the players, gradually increasing in amount and difficultly as the game progresses.

Onslaught: Waves of bad guys will attack the players. After each wave players will have a brief time to recuperate before the next one. After all waves are completed, an end boss will appear.

Domination: Players will collect resources scattered across the map or by killing enemy forces. Dropping resources off at your own base will grant access to vehicles, turrets and allow your base to generate NPC soldiers and tanks that will attack enemy forces and structures. Match is over once the enemy base is destroyed.

I love it when people do this stuff. You never know where its gonna lead, but it always so exciting. Best of luck man.

First off: It'll sound nitpicky, buuuuutt... none of those universes in question are contemporaneous. So you need the story to reflect the fact that none of them should be co-existing. For instance, the covenant is well dead and gone by 3124, they'll be soundly whooped by the 2700's in halo's universe. Personally, I would go with a tear in reality as the back story. A nice sci-fi reason to as why their all here in one place, good and bad. As well as leaving it open for the betrayal from within (One of the alliance races is secretly trying to ensure that when the tear is repaired their universe and ONLY theirs remains, so as to prevent anyone from any other reality from causing this or attempting invasion.)

I'd suggest throwing in W40K stuff... but they don't play well with anyone at all, so they wouldn't toss in with the alliance... frankly, space marines and imperial guard are so indoctrinated they would shoot non imperial humans on sight... but anyway.

Oh, oh! Pig cops! Duke nukem! You gotta thrown at least those aliens in even Duke doesn't make an appearance. I'd also make a suggestion for not RPG-ish elements, but different styles of play for each of the characters. Like the protoss are better with swords and energy weapons, spartans are the only ones whom can dual wield, predators being the only ones whom can cloak... ect, ect, ect.

First off: It'll sound nitpicky, buuuuutt... none of those universes in question are contemporaneous. So you need the story to reflect the fact that none of them should be co-existing. For instance, the covenant is well dead and gone by 3124, they'll be soundly whooped by the 2700's in halo's universe. Personally, I would go with a tear in reality as the back story. A nice sci-fi reason to as why their all here in one place, good and bad. As well as leaving it open for the betrayal from within (One of the alliance races is secretly trying to ensure that when the tear is repaired their universe and ONLY theirs remains, so as to prevent anyone from any other reality from causing this or attempting invasion.)

That was one of the issues that actually came up in the planning. To help explain it, we will be adding Startrek's Species 8472 race to the enemy forces. That race actually came from another dimension and having dimensional travel would help link all the universes together. But, not only that, Species 8472 would also give the bug race an appropriate looking space armada to help invade other worlds.

But, you have a good idea and we would like to take that direction.

The new story will be that across the multiverse dimensional rifts ripped open and the bugs flooded into all the known galaxies. They quickly swept through and overwhelmed the unprepared defenders, devouring planets whole and leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. In a desperate attempt to try to seal the rifts, the various races sent their own fleets into the rift to try to close it from the other side. Unable to navigate the turbulent rift, the fleets were ravaged and many vessels were destroyed. The ships that managed to survive were thrown into an uninhabited universe with a swarms of bugs in pursuit. Knowing their numbers are to few and resources to scarce to hold off the invading bugs alone for long, they must band together and make a final stand for survival.

QUOTE(wonko the sane? @ Feb 28 2012, 08:53 PM)

I'd suggest throwing in W40K stuff... but they don't play well with anyone at all, so they wouldn't toss in with the alliance... frankly, space marines and imperial guard are so indoctrinated they would shoot non imperial humans on sight... but anyway.

I hear they have some nice alien ships we could use.

QUOTE(wonko the sane? @ Feb 28 2012, 08:53 PM)

Oh, oh! Pig cops! Duke nukem! You gotta thrown at least those aliens in even Duke doesn't make an appearance. I'd also make a suggestion for not RPG-ish elements, but different styles of play for each of the characters. Like the protoss are better with swords and energy weapons, spartans are the only ones whom can dual wield, predators being the only ones whom can cloak... ect, ect, ect.

We might use some of the aliens from Duke Nukem, have to check out the game to see what fits where. We want the alien bugs to be complete completely from the other races, so we don't want them to use any technology like guns or clothes, but, if say a victim was infected and turned into a zombie with clothes on or holding a gun, we might use that. It is so we can bring us the moral issue if these bugs are just mindless animals or actual intelligent creatures.

And yes, some races will get certain perks. Predators will naturally start out with cloak and Protoss will get shields, depending on what they are. As a shared alliance, they are trading recovered technology with each other so eventually what ever race you pick, you will get to use all the gadgets. The problem is there is going to be so many playable races, we can't really think of a perk for all of them and it wouldn't be fair for people who pick races without perks. But, truthfully, the races are really just to customize what your character will look like, each race will still come with a profile explaining who they are, where they came from and their relationship to the alliance. Races won't have a major effect on game play.

Sounds really boring. you'd never be able to balance it. Also lawsuits.

Death is not a hunter unbeknownst to its prey, one is always aware that it lies in wait. Though life is merely a journey to the grave, it must not be undertaken without hope. Only then will a traveler's story live on, treasured by those who bid him farewell.

Sounds really boring. you'd never be able to balance it. Also lawsuits.

That is why we are making it into a shooter game instead of a RPG, it is based on a set number rather the scaling values. A single class is impossible not to balance. Most of other game features that will be added are just for visual effects and story elements. We plan to add a lot of gaming featuring and options to make it more entertaining, but just like any other shooter game, you will still have the option of just picking up weapons and killing things with them.

The lawsuits may be a problem, but as long as it's non-profit, they can't sue us for anything.

So then it's just skins on a generic FPS? You can already get stuff like that.

Death is not a hunter unbeknownst to its prey, one is always aware that it lies in wait. Though life is merely a journey to the grave, it must not be undertaken without hope. Only then will a traveler's story live on, treasured by those who bid him farewell.

So then it's just skins on a generic FPS? You can already get stuff like that.

But with our own story and gaming engine, this way we can add new features without restrictive programing limitations from other engines. This way we can scale each race accordingly to size and give them the appropriate features. Predators with quad-jaws, Protoss with oval heads and creatures with horns if they have them. We are doing far more then copy pasting imagines over preexisting models. We plan to make them look and feel like they did in their original games instead of some kind of weird multicolored clone. We plan for it to be far from generic, but that option still exists if players who want it.

Death is not a hunter unbeknownst to its prey, one is always aware that it lies in wait. Though life is merely a journey to the grave, it must not be undertaken without hope. Only then will a traveler's story live on, treasured by those who bid him farewell.

tyrannids are kinda "bug-ish". And the Tau are pretty good at paying nicely with others. Kroot and Vespid too (animalistic and bug-ish, but sentient and working with the Tau.) but given how... litigation minded games workshop is, it's probably better to leave them out.

Good base story: covers why everyone is together and opens up story options for the player to discover. Like why an uninhabited universe has wreckage and ruins all over, dead cities, giant starships, void ward space bases and the like. What happened to them and is it a threat to the people whom are now stuck in till the jobs done.

How are you going to stage the levels? Is it going to be half life-ish sequeing flowingly from one section to another with the arc of the story, or campaign-ish where you are simply deployed where you are deployed, following the flow of the war and the orders from higher up? Cause the latter gives the option of a player choosing his next level to a certain degree. Basically: on one world, or spread over multiple worlds and facilities in the new universe?

The lawsuits may be a problem, but as long as it's non-profit, they can't sue us for anything.

They can't, but they can still issue a cease and desist. If you fail to abide by that, then they can sue you.

Refer to such famous cases such as 'Bid for Power' or any Alien mod ever. Alien mods coined the term 'Getting Foxed'. That's when Fox shuts you down and takes everything you created. It's within their legal rights to do that.

Also, are you guys planning on creating all this artwork on your own? It's quite a lot.

It's also far easier to make an engine than trying to modify someone else's code into doing what you want it to. Hell, they might have just wanted the challenge.

Well, creating an engine from scratch is by far an 'easy' task, and not really 'easier' than just modding an existing engine. Granted there are a lot of variables that play into it all, but that's usually the case.

If you just want to make 'generic shooter 864465687' then it's easier to just find a shooter you like and mod that, but when you start adding other systems like racing or jetpacks, or other types, then it can be argued that it's easier to start from scratch.

(I tell you what though, it's easier to just mod UDK... just sayin'...)

For obvious legal reasons, we might refrain from any 'office' website until we get the game up and running. As soon as we it on the internet, it should be impossible get off regardless of what anyone says. Trying to keep it all underground until we release it.

QUOTE(wonko the sane? @ Feb 29 2012, 09:06 AM)

tyrannids are kinda "bug-ish". And the Tau are pretty good at paying nicely with others. Kroot and Vespid too (animalistic and bug-ish, but sentient and working with the Tau.) but given how... litigation minded games workshop is, it's probably better to leave them out.

What game it that from? I'll look into it.

QUOTE(wonko the sane? @ Feb 29 2012, 09:06 AM)

are you going to stage the levels? Is it going to be half life-ish sequeing flowingly from one section to another with the arc of the story, or campaign-ish where you are simply deployed where you are deployed, following the flow of the war and the orders from higher up? Cause the latter gives the option of a player choosing his next level to a certain degree. Basically: on one world, or spread over multiple worlds and facilities in the new universe?

We are going with the idea of enclosed areas for the maps. One stage your in a hospital trying to save innocent people, the next you could be on a derelict ship looking for lost weapon designs and another your planet side trying to stop a massive wave of bugs from over running a base. We plan to add a lot of the classic maps from Golden Eye and such for that nostalgic feel.

QUOTE(skankerzero @ Feb 29 2012, 11:46 AM)

They can't, but they can still issue a cease and desist. If you fail to abide by that, then they can sue you.

Refer to such famous cases such as 'Bid for Power' or any Alien mod ever. Alien mods coined the term 'Getting Foxed'. That's when Fox shuts you down and takes everything you created. It's within their legal rights to do that.

Also, are you guys planning on creating all this artwork on your own? It's quite a lot.

That is why we are now planning to keep it hush-hush until it is pretty much ready to play.

A lot of it we might just rip from other games like Mass Effect and rescale to size while others might take some more work, like in Half-Life the texture for the creatures are a little out dated so we might reedit their skins a bit and add some gloss to them so they feel like they fit in with the rest of the art.

Also, in case you were wondering, we are going with the stylized realism for the over all art theme of it.

QUOTE(skankerzero @ Feb 29 2012, 01:15 PM)

Well, creating an engine from scratch is by far an 'easy' task, and not really 'easier' than just modding an existing engine. Granted there are a lot of variables that play into it all, but that's usually the case.

If you just want to make 'generic shooter 864465687' then it's easier to just find a shooter you like and mod that, but when you start adding other systems like racing or jetpacks, or other types, then it can be argued that it's easier to start from scratch.

Jetpacks! O_O! Why didn't we think of those yet?! We were talking about adding night vision goggles, infra-red goggle to see through walls and detect cloaked enemies and rebreathers for underwater sections. But, jetpack? totally slipped our mind.

The the main reason we are making our own engine is because we what to add things most other engines have a hard time dealing with. We want to add our own unique psychics design for unarmed martial arts combat like in Oni. (just because you don't have a weapon doesn't mean your helpless, right?) We also want to add in like gas and water generators for environmental hazard traps that a lot of engines have problems with. Also, we plan to have Xenomorphs walk on walls and ceiling like they did on other games and AI path finding for engines not built for that is murder. Not to mention the resource harvesting aspect to it.

Also, in later development we plan to have an easy to use map editor. Which will save us a ton of work to make our own engine rather then make an attachment to fit another.

...like you'll do two weapon textures and promptly forget the project.

Death is not a hunter unbeknownst to its prey, one is always aware that it lies in wait. Though life is merely a journey to the grave, it must not be undertaken without hope. Only then will a traveler's story live on, treasured by those who bid him farewell.

Do any of you guys have programming experience? Ever made a game before?What language will you be using?

If any of the answers are "no" or "I don't know," then I would suggest starting much smaller.Try a simple 2D space shooter. It doesn't get much simpler than that. Want something more complex? Try a 2D platform-action shooter.

I few years back I made a 2D space shooter. It was worlds simpler than what you are describing. Never finished it...But I totally get how making your own engine is fun. I had the most fun with AI. I had code for "seeking" enemy ships, that would home in on the player in the X or the Y, or both. Those were pretty easy to kill, since they pretty much get right in front of you. But they are also difficult to dodge. I also had code for "dodging" enemy ships. They would dodge bullets by moving on the X or on the Y, or both. XY dodgers were almost impossible to kill. Even worse, the levels would sometimes (randomly) spawn XY-dodger-XY-seekers. They stayed right on top of you all the time... but got the hell out of the way if you fired at them. I also had a lot of fun with weapon behaviors... which really are coded the same way AI is. It was a very satisfying project for me, even though it was only 2D, and pretty unambitious, and very unfinished. Maybe start more in that direction, so you actually can make some progress faster, and hammer out who is going to be fulfilling what role.

(The project was also pretty useful for me. Coding simple video games is extremely similar to coding the behavioral experiments with animals that I spend most of my time doing lately.)

As far the creative content... Really, you can get sued over ANYTHING. Just because you get sued doesn't mean it will stand up in court... but if the other party has more money for lawyers than you do, it can waste a lot of your time and money. I was recently sued by [confidential] because I [confidential] even though what I was doing had nothing to do with them. Essentially it was a BS move because they wanted to [confidential] before anyone else could, and were afraid that my [confidential] would cause someone else to want to get a [confidential] on the [confidential]. We came to an agreement, which is really kind on my part, where I had to put [confidential] on hold for a few months while they worked on getting [confidential]. If they make a fuss again we are counter-suing.

The morale of the story, work on something small, and don't get your feelings hurt if you have to use your own creative property.

Well, yeah, it is easier to transfer skin textures then try to eyeball it. It is best to try to get as accurate as possible to the real thing.

QUOTE(Varnon @ Feb 29 2012, 07:19 PM)

Do any of you guys have programming experience? Ever made a game before?What language will you be using?

Yes, one of my friends is currently going to college for programming. Yes, I have made games before. I imagine C++

QUOTE(Varnon @ Feb 29 2012, 07:19 PM)

I few years back I made a 2D space shooter. It was worlds simpler than what you are describing. Never finished it...But I totally get how making your own engine is fun. I had the most fun with AI. I had code for "seeking" enemy ships, that would home in on the player in the X or the Y, or both. Those were pretty easy to kill, since they pretty much get right in front of you. But they are also difficult to dodge. I also had code for "dodging" enemy ships. They would dodge bullets by moving on the X or on the Y, or both. XY dodgers were almost impossible to kill. Even worse, the levels would sometimes (randomly) spawn XY-dodger-XY-seekers. They stayed right on top of you all the time... but got the hell out of the way if you fired at them. I also had a lot of fun with weapon behaviors... which really are coded the same way AI is. It was a very satisfying project for me, even though it was only 2D, and pretty unambitious, and very unfinished. Maybe start more in that direction, so you actually can make some progress faster, and hammer out who is going to be fulfilling what role.

I had so many programming errors when I made my first game. It is a nice little hobby, spend 4 hours of programming for 10 minutes of game play just to hear people say "meh". I think the most frustrating part is having people tell you have grammar errors and then going back and fixing them. Because if I want to change any dialog text it is not like it is in one big word document where I can just scroll down and fix, each line of text is hidden some where that I randomly place in a code or in a trigger, I pretty much have to dig through everything to find it, then change the words and see if the text can still fit on the screen or if I have to resize it and what not. If it is just some glitch in the game those are easy to hunt down and fix.

QUOTE(Varnon @ Feb 29 2012, 07:19 PM)

The morale of the story, work on something small, and don't get your feelings hurt if you have to use your own creative property.

There is nothing original left in the world. If we do make our own creatures, they will just resemble something someone else saw in a different game and be all like "well, this is just a bad rip off of blah-blah-blah" or what not. This way people will know it is a nostalgic homage to all their favorite past and present games. But, really, many ways can you reinvent a human soldier or just keep making new designs for a pistol?

I mean look at Halo, look how popular that game was, but did it have anything original about it? No, it was just another generic shooter game but yet everyone loved it and when asked why no one could give a more in depth answer then "IT ROCKS!!"

But just to be a tad original, I might add in a bunny race.

EDIT

QUOTE(Hora Hora @ Feb 29 2012, 04:13 PM)

Wow, uh, this sounds....

...like you'll do two weapon textures and promptly forget the project.